NEWS

December European Council meeting

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia, Alenka Bratušek, attended a two-day European Council meeting held in Brussels on 19 and 20 December. The main topics on the agenda included the Common Security and Defence Policy, EMU, economic and social policy, enlargement, migration and external affairs. 

 

The Prime Minister said that in the area of the common security and defence policy, "a step forward has been made in strengthening cooperation between the Member States, which is definitely a positive development and therefore Slovenia supports it." 

 

The leaders also discussed the economic situation in the EU and agreed that unemployment remained high despite the first signs of recovery, meaning that great efforts would still be required to implement the reforms. The Prime Minister highlighted that solving the youth unemployment issues was particularly important. As part of the talks on the banking union, the agreement on the Single Resolution Mechanism, reached by the Finance Ministers, was endorsed. The Prime Minister shared with her colleagues Slovenia’s experience with stress tests and said that "she received many congratulations from her colleagues."

 

The leaders welcomed the decision to convene the first EU-Serbia accession conference in January 2014. The Slovenian Prime Minister hailed it as good news and said that in the coming year she expected that "progress would also be made by those countries that were not part of this good news." She highlighted Bosnia and Herzegovina which must take the necessary steps in the European integration processes also with the full support of Slovenia.